Cinema isn’t just about the latest Disney/Pixar project or Star Wars spin-off. Memorable storytelling is happening all over the film industry, from Hollywood’s box-office-busting superhero smashes to small, innovative indie experiments. The Verge’s film section is here to help you sort through the latest Hollywood news and reviews, from favorite genres like sci-fi, fantasy, and horror to the independent movies that matter.
As terrifying as FX’s new Alien: Earth series is probably going to be, it’s going to be so much more alarming if we get to see some of how things go sideways from the perspective of the USCSS Maginot’s pet cat.
A 4K restoration of Princess Mononoke is debuting in IMAX theaters in North America starting March 26th in celebration Studio Ghibli’s 40th anniversary. You can buy tickets now.
Correction: The film is celebrating Studio Ghibli’s 40th anniversary, not Princess Mononoke’s.
To get folks hyped up for the upcoming debut of Andor’s second season on Disney Plus April 22nd, Disney has put the show’s entire first season on Hulu and uploaded its first three episodes on YouTube. Additionally, on March 13th, Andor creator Tony Gilroy will host a live, hour-long rewatch event streamed on YouTube “with select talent,” which better be code for “Diego Luna and national treasure Kathryn Hunter.”
Bong Joon Ho’s Mickey 17 powers through its turbulence to tell a timely story about workers’ rights.
Former Gizmodo EIC Dan Ackerman’s lawsuit alleging that Apple, the Tetris company, screenwriter Noah Pink and others ripped off his 2016 book, The Tetris Effect: The Game That Hypnotized the World, for their 2023 Apple TV Plus movie has been dismissed. Reuters reports Ackerman’s lawyer said he will appeal the decision.
In her ruling, Judge Katherine Failla writes:
Ultimately, the Court finds that Defendants’ Film is not substantially similar to Plaintiff’s Book and that Plaintiff has failed to allege that Defendants misappropriated the way he selected, coordinated, and arranged the facts in his Book.
Where the Book’s tone is informative, the Film’s is suspenseful and dramatic, at times deviating from the true facts underlying the story and going so far as to invent an entire KGB subplot, which takes up significant screen time, to create that theatrical effect.
Jack Kirby, the iconic comics artist who co-created Marvel’s X-Men and Avengers, and originated DC’s New Gods, is the subject of Kirbyvision, a new documentary from director Ricki Stern (Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work, UFOs: Investigating the Unknown).
According to Stern, the doc is her way of pushing for Kirby to finally receive some of the recognition he deserves as the creative wellspring companies like Disney and Warner Bros. Discovery are still drawing from.
Following the debut trailer for Andor’s second season, Lucasfilm has released another brief video, with some behind-the-scenes footage and a few new tidbits — including Diego Luna in some cool sci-fi sunglasses. The show starts streaming on Disney Plus on April 22nd.
Succession may be over, but Jesse Armstrong has written and directed a new feature length project for HBO about “a group of billionaire friends get together against the backdrop of a rolling international crisis,” which sounds like the next best thing to the show coming back for another season. The movie stars Steve Carell, Jason Schwartzman, Cory Michael Smith, and Ramy Youssef, and it’s set to debut this spring.
Director Sean Baker started the evening with zero Oscars under his belt, and left with four — for original screenplay, film editing, director, and best picture. (Not to mention Mikey Madison’s win for best actress.) Last fall, The Verge spoke with Baker about how he made Anora’s scant $6 million budget look like a film made for $50 million.
My colleague Chris Welch spotted that the tab had been pinned to the top of his home screen in the iOS app, beckoning him to stick with Threads for the latest news on the awards show, which is starting in less than an hour at 7PM ET.
I don’t have it, but it’s not unusual for Threads to test the waters before rolling features out to everyone.
Director Cutter Hodierne’s new film, Cold Wallet, is a parable about how the house almost always wins.
Truly: what is going on in this new Minecraft Movie trailer?
During its most recent earnings call, Paramount reported that Paramount Plus’ revenue was up by 16% in Q4, and the streamer added 5.6 million new subscribers bringing its total up to 77.5 million. Per The Hollywood Reporter, Paramount expects to keep the new-sub momentum going through Q1 2025, albeit at a slightly slower rate due to its current content line up.
[hollywoodreporter.com]
Netflix’s slasher franchise continues, this time with the spinoff Prom Queen. While it may not be as inventive as a three-part movie event, the first teaser does look it could still be fun. It starts streaming way ahead of Halloween, too, with a May 23rd premiere date.
Though it seemed like Mattel’s grim and angsty live-action Barney film adaptation was on the back burner for a while, the studio announced today that it has partnered with A24 to produce the project along with Daniel Kaluuya’s 59% Productions, and tapped Ayo Edebiri to pen the script.
[hollywoodreporter.com]
Puck reports that Kennedy, who has steered franchises like Star Wars and Indiana Jones since Disney acquired Lucasfilm in 2012, has informed the studio and others that she will step down by the end of 2025.
In 2023, Kennedy announced three new Star Wars films before murkier reports appeared last year about a new trilogy, and we just saw a new trailer for Andor season two. If there is a change at the top, then it could come with some clarity about the series’ future on big and small screens alike.
[puck.news]
DC has yet to make it official, but James Watkins (Speak No Evil) is reportedly the studio’s pick to direct its new Clayface feature that’s being written by Mike Flanagan.
[hollywoodreporter.com]
While The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim wasn’t exactly worth a trek to the theater, you might want to check it out when it starts streaming on Max on February 28th.
Though this year’s Pokémon Day will be full of announcements about the franchise’s upcoming games, it will also feature the debut of Dragonite and the Postal Worker, a new animated short produced by CoMix Wave Films — the studio behind director Makoto Shinkai‘s Suzume, Weathering With You, and Your Name.
A new trailer for the short — out on YouTube February 27th 12 AM JST — makes it look like it’s going to be a gorgeous reminder that there’s more to the Pokémon world than battling.
Money was the obviously part of what convinced Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson to give Amazon complete creative control over the James Bond franchise after years of telling the studio to kick rocks. None of the involved parties have disclosed exactly how much cash it took to secure the deal, but Deadline is pretty sure 007 wound up costing Amazon a cool $1 billion — that’s in addition to the $8.5 billion Amazon already spent acquiring MGM.
Netflix has “come aboard” the in-development live-action movie adaptation of Sifu and selected a screenwriter, Deadline says. The adaptation was initially announced in late 2022, but there’s still no indication of if or when it might be released.
You can add Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic I and II to your library until March 20th, Epic says.
The store is available worldwide on Android but only in the EU on iOS.
Over the next four years, Netflix plans to spend $1 billion dollars to energize the production of new films and series out of Mexico according to The Hollywood Reporter. The investment is nowhere near the $2.5 billion Netflix committed to South Korean productions a few years ago. And a time when the studio has come under fire for platforming questionable depictions of Mexico (see: Emilia Pérez), the move definitely feels like some strategic damage control.
[hollywoodreporter.com]
Now that Jon M. Chu’s Wicked has cleaned up at the box office, made even more bank thanks to an early digital release, and been nominated for a bunch of awards, the musical is making its Peacock streaming debut on March 21st.
Danny and Michael Philippou, the directors behind the breakout horror hit Talk To Me, are finally ready to show what they having coming next. Well, they’re teasing it. The brief trailer for Bring Her Back doesn’t show all that much, but it certainly sets a mood. As does the premise: “a brother and sister uncover a terrifying ritual at the secluded home of their new foster mother.” The movie hits theaters on May 30th.
It’s hard to imagine The Substance working nearly as well without its exquisitely deranged third act turn, but in a new interview with Vulture, director Coralie Fargeat says that Universal — which was originally slated to distribute the film — “wanted everything changed” and was convinced that audiences wouldn’t respond to her ideas:
The movie was exactly what I wanted to do, which was to show that yes, this is violent, this is excessive, this is gross. They didn’t want to see that.
One thing that was really not liked was the monster. The monster is the most sincere and risky part, where I show my inner self. I show the way I felt since I was a little kid, because I don’t totally fit what is expected. You show yourself naked and people find you ugly. But I was like, okay, so even monsters have to meet some beauty standards. It’s really an endless battle.
[vulture.com]
As disappointing as it was to see Daft Punk and Leiji Matsumoto’s Interstella 5555 mangled by AI for its recent theatrical rerelease, the new Vampire Hunter D Bloodlust Blu-ray remaster (whose first 10 minutes you can watch down below) looks like it’s going to be a stunner. The anime classic is coming back to Japanese movie theaters on February 28th, and will be able to purchase on Blu-ray beginning March 26th.
He’s playing Odysseus in Christopher Nolan’s new take on The Odyssey, seemingly putting to bed speculation that Tom Holland is playing the lead in the film. It’s Damon’s first time as a Nolan lead, after smaller roles in Oppenheimer and Interstellar.
Last week Mia Goth joined the sprawling cast in what’s reportedly a non-speaking role, but no-one else’s parts have yet been confirmed. The Odyssey hits theaters in July 2026.
Almost 40 years after the original was released in June 1985, Warner Bros. has hired Potsy Ponciroli to write the script for a sequel to The Goonies, with Steven Spielberg, Kristie Macosko Krieger, and Holly Bario producing for Amblin Entertainment, alongside Chris Columbus. Lauren Shuler Donner will executive produce, according to a report from Variety. It’s unknown who will direct the sequel, and there are no details on its plot or cast yet.
It wasn’t hard to imagine John Malkovich being able to embody the spirit of an eccentric, reclusive pop star in A24’s new thriller Opus. But it’s kind of shocking to hear how good he sounds singing “Dina, Simone”, one of the movie’s original songs written and written by Nile Rodgers and The-Dream.
Marvel’s latest Captain America movie.
